The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 8 to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal鈥搊rganic frameworks,” or MOFs.

These materials are made up of a repeated network of molecular building blocks that form a crystalline structure that has large pores in it. MOFs are incredibly modular, which means they can be used for a seemingly endless variety of applications, including harvesting water from desert air or removing toxic chemicals from a solution.

Both , a 91探花 associate professor of chemistry, and , a 91探花assistant professor of chemistry, use MOFs in their research at the UW. 91探花News reached out to them to learn more about the significance of these structures and how researchers use them.

Can you explain what a MOF is?

Dianne Xiao: MOFs are materials composed of metal ions 鈥� we call these the “nodes” 鈥� connected by rigid organic bridging groups 鈥� we call these the “struts.”听 Together they make an extended, crystalline porous network.

There are many different analogies that people have used to explain MOFs to a general audience. One common description is a “crystalline sponge,” which highlights how MOFs have very large interior surface areas and void spaces that can be used to bind and store specific molecules, what we call “guests.”

Another phrase people have used is “molecular tinker toys,” which highlights how tunable and modular the synthesis is: You can pair virtually any metal ion on the periodic table with hundreds, if not thousands, of different organic bridging groups, and obtain a MOF with properties tailored to your specific application.

What kind of chemistry do they help facilitate?

Douglas Reed: The modularity of MOFs allows researchers to design materials to soak up a specific guest molecule, and the immensely high surface areas enable MOFs to remove large quantities of these guest molecules very quickly. One example is removing carbon dioxide from industrial waste streams: This application requires a material that can selectively soak up carbon dioxide, but leave behind benign molecules, such as nitrogen and water. MOFs can do this with greater selectivity, higher carbon dioxide removal capacity and lower energy penalties than traditional technologies.

In another example, MOFs with different organic struts and metal nodes can be used to remove forever chemicals, such as PFAS, or toxic chemicals, such as heavy metals, from water.

Other researchers use the high surface area of the pore to more effectively store large quantities of gasses, such as hydrogen, that can be used as clean fuels. People can even place catalytic sites within the pores to perform challenging chemical reactions.

What is the significance of the discovery that was awarded this year?

DX: We already have some porous materials, such as activated carbon, mesoporous silica and zeolites, which play incredibly important roles in industry and in our daily lives. But compared to these traditional porous materials, what makes MOFs distinct and significant is their molecular tunability and structural diversity.

As the , since Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi鈥檚 foundational work in the 1990s, tens of thousands of MOFs have been synthesized and discovered. Some of these MOFs have already been commercialized for applications, such as carbon dioxide capture and toxic gas storage. However, regardless of commercialization potential, the field of MOFs has been and will continue to be a very exciting field for basic science, thanks to their tunability!

Can you talk about how you use MOFs in your research at the UW?

DX: Porous materials, and MOFs specifically, are central to my group鈥檚 research. One area is heterogeneous catalysis, where we take advantage of the tunability of MOFs to create active sites that make it easier for chemical reactions to happen than they would on their own. We鈥檙e also very interested in making porous materials that can conduct electricity for applications such as electrochemical carbon dioxide capture and electrocatalysis.

DR: While our research group doesn鈥檛 study traditional MOFs, we use MOF-based concepts to make existing materials porous. With this extra space, we can potentially make more stable solar cells by introducing repair molecules. Similarly, we can increase the efficiency of cooling devices by providing better airflow through the material. Many foundational synthetic methods for our current research are based on existing metal鈥搊rganic frameworks.

For more information, contact Xiao at djxiao@uw.edu and Reed at dreed4@uw.edu.

Three 91探花 faculty members have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The new Sloan Fellows, announced Feb. 18, are , the Clare Boothe Luce assistant professor of electrical & computer engineering and bioengineering, , an assistant professor of chemistry, and , an assistant professor of computer science in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering.听

Since the first Sloan Research Fellowships were awarded in 1955, and including this year鈥檚 fellows, 131 faculty from 91探花 have received a Sloan Research Fellowship, according to the Sloan Foundation.听

Sloan Fellowships are open to scholars in seven scientific and technical fields 鈥� chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics 鈥� and honor early-career researchers whose achievements mark them among the next generation of scientific leaders.听

The 126鈥�鈥痺ere selected by researchers and faculty in the scientific community. Candidates are nominated by their peers, and fellows are selected by independent panels of senior scholars based on each candidate鈥檚 research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a leader in their field. Each fellow will receive $75,000 to apply toward research endeavors.听

This year鈥檚 fellows come from 51 institutions across the United States and Canada.听

Orsborn鈥檚 research aims to understand how neurons in our brains work together to let us learn to move in many different ways. She uses engineering technologies like brain-computer interfaces to manipulate how neural activity relates to movement, which gives researchers new ways to link neural activity to computations related to how they believe the brain may perform. She also uses collaborations with theorists to build models that help researchers bridge from experimental data to computational principles.听

鈥淲e can quickly adapt our tennis skills to the pickleball court, but it also takes years to perfect a piano concerto,鈥� Orsborn said. 鈥淥ur flexibility likely comes from our brain’s ability to learn in many ways, but we don’t understand how neurons actually implement different learning computations. I hope to build bridges between computational principles and biological implementation, which will ultimately help us build therapies to restore movements lost due to injuries like stroke.鈥�听

Xiao鈥檚 research program designs new porous materials to address unsolved challenges in clean energy and chemical sustainability. These include developing new porous adsorbents that can use renewable electricity to drive chemical processes, as well as new porous catalysts that can convert sustainable feedstocks into useful products.听

鈥淧orous materials are the bedrock of industrial heterogeneous catalysis and chemical separations. Many of the chemicals we use in our daily lives have, at some point, been purified or chemically transformed within nano-sized pores,鈥� Xiao said. 鈥淕oing forward, new breakthroughs in porous materials synthesis are needed to harness renewable energy sources and chemical feedstocks. With the support of this award, along with the collaborative ecosystem at the UW, we hope to realize these synthetic breakthroughs faster, better and more cheaply.鈥�听

Zhang’s research reimagines the design of online social platforms to empower the public to take control of their online experiences. Inspired by offline public institutions and political theory, she creates novel social computing systems for collaborative governance of online communities and AI. She also develops tools for personal and collective customization on social media and approaches for encouraging pro-social public discourse.听

鈥淒igital platforms comprise socio-technical infrastructure that are crucial to the lives of millions, yet today they are governed and designed by a select few,鈥� Zhang said. 鈥淎s a result, many people do not see themselves represented in the decisions made and possible configurations supported by the major platforms they鈥痷se. But putting the onus on end users to figure it out themselves can be overwhelming. I develop toolkits and interactive techniques informed by user needs to scaffold the process of customization, enabling both flexibility and ease of use.鈥�听

Contact Orsborn at aorsborn@uw.edu; Xiao at djxiao@uw.edu; and Zhang at axz@cs.uw.edu. 听

The Packard Fellowship is awarded to early-career scientists and engineers who are pursuing new areas of research. Each of the 20 new fellows announced Oct. 18 will receive $875,000 in unrestricted funds for use over the next five years.

One of Xiao鈥檚 research projects focuses on developing new porous conductors that could help the chemical industry switch to renewable energy sources.

鈥淲e would really want to use renewable electricity to drive chemical processes,鈥� said Xiao, who is also the Klaus and Mary Ann Saegebarth Endowed Faculty Fellow. 鈥淚n order to do that, we need materials that not only conduct charge, but can also be engineered to contain specific catalytic sites or binding sites.鈥�

In addition to her research on porous conductors, Xiao鈥檚 is developing catalytic materials that can convert sustainable starting material, such as , into desired chemicals. The goal is to help shift the chemical industry away from using petroleum as its primary raw material.

Xiao earned her bachelor鈥檚 degree from Harvard University in 2011 and her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. She completed her postdoctoral studies at Stanford University before joining the 91探花faculty in 2019.

The Packard Fellowship, one of the largest nongovernmental research awards, will further Xiao鈥檚 work toward a more sustainable future for the chemical industry.

鈥淲henever you鈥檙e starting a research group, there are areas you don鈥檛 have total familiarity with,鈥� Xiao said. 鈥淚t can be hard to get funding, or it can feel hard to break into that area. Having this funding means being able to take intellectual risks, make mistakes and hire people with different expertise. That will allow us to grow and push our research.鈥�

Xiao said she was originally drawn to inorganic chemistry because of a compelling and accessible undergraduate professor 鈥� something she keeps in mind as she teaches inorganic chemistry and mentors undergraduate researchers at the UW.

鈥淚norganic chemists want to learn how to manipulate or transform really simple molecules, like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water and the smallest hydrocarbons,鈥� Xiao said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e some of the hardest molecules to make react in ways that you want them to, but unlocking their reactivity is the key to a sustainable future. As an undergrad, all of this seemed important and exciting, but I never would鈥檝e gone into inorganic chemistry research, or stayed in it, if I didn鈥檛 have great mentors.”

As her career progressed, Xiao also fell in love with synthesizing new molecules and materials.

鈥淢any of the materials we make have beautiful structures, so I think that鈥檚 also very appealing,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an exciting application, but you鈥檙e also making materials that have never been made before.鈥�

According to the Office of Research at the UW, Xiao is the 14^th faculty member to earn a Packard Fellowship and the fifth from the Department of Chemistry. Xiao is also the fourth Packard Fellow currently on the chemistry faculty, joining , and .

For more information, contact Xiao at djxiao@uw.edu.

Allen School’s Richard Anderson receives humanitarian award from Association of Computer Machinery

, professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, has received the from the Association for Computer Machinery.

The award, given every two years, recognizes an individual or group who has made a significant contribution through computing technology. Anderson’s award, which comes with a prize of $5,000, recognizes “contributions that bridge the fields of computer science, education and global health.”

Anderson co-directs the , which studies how technology can be used to improve the lives of populations in low-income regions. “With his students and collaborators,” the association noted, “Anderson developed a range of innovative applications in health, education, the internet, and financial services, benefiting underserved communities around the globe.”

Eugene Leighton Lawler (1933-1994), for whom the award is named, was a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Read more about the award on the Allen School .

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91探花chemistry professor Dianne Xiao receives award from DOE Early Career Research Program

, 91探花assistant professor of chemistry, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science to receive funding from its .

The Early Career Research Program, now in its 12^th year, program supports “exceptional researchers during the crucial early years, when many scientists do their most formative work.”

The program provides university-based researchers with about $150,000 a year for five years, to cover summer salary and expenses. Eighty-three scientists were selected nationwide, including 32 from the DOE’s national laboratories and 51 from U.S. universities. The awards were announced on May 27.

Xiao’s , listed under the Basic Energy Sciences category, is titled “New Synthetic Approaches Towards Atomically Precise 蟺鈥揹 Conjugated Materials.”

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Charles Johnson guest-edits anthology of Black American literature, parts with archive

, 91探花professor emeritus of English, has guest-edited and contributed to a special edition of Chicago Quarterly Review, “

The Chicago Quarterly Review is a nonprofit, independent journal, established in 1994 that publishes short stories, poems, translations and essays by emerging and established writers.

An essayist, screenwriter and professional cartoonist as well as author, Johnson won the National Book Award for his novel “.”

Johnson wrote the introduction and contributed a story to the anthology 鈥� the journal’s volume #33 鈥� called “Night Shift,” which he penned for the 2020 for Humanities Washington. The volume contains work by more than two dozen Black writers. An earlier special edition of the journal was dedicated to South Asian American writers, and an upcoming issue will focus on Native American literature.

Also, Washington University in St. Louis in May that it has acquired the Charles Johnson Papers, an archival collection of materials related to Johnson’s work as an author and illustrator. “Spanning nearly six decades, the collection brings together manuscripts, drafts, correspondence, artwork and ephemera, and serves as a testament to Johnson’s wide-ranging career as a public intellectual.”